Happy Easter!

After gathering up all the plastic eggs the bunny deposited around our living room, Daniel declared, "Now THAT'S a good Easter egg hunt."

This was in contrast to the public event we attended yesterday where the kids were instructed to collect three eggs each to ensure enough to go around. Daniel did not hear the instruction (or, more likely, ignored it) and was not pleased with me when I tracked him down and made him throw back all but three for the kids standing around with none.

After church, our neighbor saw us trying to set the self-timer on the camera perched on top of the car in the driveway and helpfully came over to take a family picture.

So unaccustomed are we to bright, sunny days, that Daniel just could not keep his eyes open. Let's hope he gets more practice in the days ahead.

Oh, spring break, you oxymoron!

Friday afternoon:

Sunday afternoon:

There was also a scavenger hunt with Dad:

Clues led

all over

the house.

Prize was in the linen closet (things in here get wetter as they dry.)

And a Hawkeye NIT game with Gram and PopPop:

 Daniel was SO into it!

 Victory!

Ready to return to routines tomorrow.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This is round eight of the annual St. Patrick's photo and for the first time ever, I captured the best picture on the first take. For the full archives, click through to last year's post or see this Facebook album.

The dads' group at Edward's school (subset of the PTO) held its annual spelling bee and Edward was an eager participant. It's a team competition--three first- and second-graders per team.

In the first round, the teammates were allowed to consult with each other before writing the word on a white board. This led to mixed results for Edward's team:

After 20 minutes, the first round ended and the judges (including John) counted up how many words each team had spelled correctly. The top two teams advanced to the next round, which was oral. Edward's team missed it by one word, but he was still enthusiastic about staying to see the outcome.

The format worked well to keep the kids engaged without getting discouraged. They weren't automatically "out" with just one word misspelled and they didn't feel defeated when they got three wrong in a row (Edward.) In the car on the way home, he exclaimed, "I had a GREAT time!" John later learned that at least part of that glee was due to the cookie each kid got when it was over. Still, I think he'll be back next year.

On the way home from a trip to the Children's Museum, the boys asked for a piece of gum. With reminders to keep it in their mouths, I handed back a piece for each. (Note: I'm not a gum chewer, but John is and usually has a spearmint pack in each car. The boys know this.)

About 2/3 of the way home, Daniel asked from the back seat, "How much longer until we get home?" It's not a long trip (about 15 minutes) and should be quite familiar to him, but I said, "Just a few more minutes." Continued silence from the back seat. A few minutes later:

"Mom, I don't know how this happened, but my gum fell out of my mouth and got all over my church shirt."

Still on the highway, but glance in the rear view mirror to see that he has strands of gum stretched out over both hands, his coat, and shirt. Clearly he'd attempted to rectify an error (hence, asking how much time he had) and made the situation worse.

"Don't move any more! You're just making it worse" I said. (OK, shouted.) He sat miserably in the back seat the rest of the way home while I took the opportunity to remind him that this was exactly why gum had to stay in the mouth and that he would no longer be allowed to chew gum.

"Well," he countered, "you won't be making the rules for me when I'm a grown up so I can chew gum then!"

Dream big, my friend.

When we got home, John got his hands cleaned up in the sink so that we could get the coat off. Then he was able to scrape the rest of the gum off the coat and shirt, so all's well that ends well.